First Stop Paris!
The start of our month long European holiday commenced with a couple of days in Paris. We ended up staying for 3 nights. It was such a quick trip but a special place I know our girls especially loved and will cherish those memories for life. Jesse and I were on a work holiday to shoot some photography sessions in Italy and we took the opportrunity to take the girls with us and have some quality family time together. As a photographer, it was so special to capture our girls, while documenting our travels together.
This is the first blog of our European Series and our highly requested Travel Itinerary - day to day adventures as a family.
Day 1
We flew into Paris at 1pm in the afternoon and after a very long flight with our two young daughters, we where all excited to finally reach our destination and home for the next 3 nights. We caught a taxi from the Airport which was really easy as the airport has really clearly labelled taxi bay and an attendant that helps order and prepare taxis. We were travelling heavy with car seats for our time in Italy so we did need a mini van. It took about 45mins from the airport our accomodation on was Champs Elysee. We stayed at the O’lysee hotel. It was the perfect location.
When we arrived the hotel was wonderful and they helped unload and take up all our bags, they stored our car seats in their hotel storage so we didn’t have to fill up our room with unnecessary items. Rooms in Europe are often tiny so this was amazing. Our room was a tiny but it had the sweetest little Parisian balcony over looking the streets.
Once we settled in we decided to head out and soak in that Persian air. We made our way down the Champs Élysées and visited the famous Laudree Paris for macaroons something that was high on Summers bucket list. The girls loved picking out some sweet treats. We made our way up the street wandering the beautiful shops and came to the Arc de Triomphe. We purchased our tickets to walk the steps to the top and the view was amazing. A must for your trip!
That night we had planned to go to the famous steak and fries restaurant, however when we arrived the line was so long. I have heard that it goes really fast, but with the jet lag setting in we really wanted to make sure we all got a good nights sleep before Disneyland and the next day.
We ended up grabbing a table across the road at a sweet little restaurant and enjoyed French onion soup, warm bread. The girls enjoyed a cheese burger (haha) and we shared a chocolate mousse for dessert. It was amazing. The girls where so full and so sleepy they fell asleep at the table in between courses.
We walked back to our hotel and we all fell straight to sleep after a big few days of travelling.
Day 2
We woke up early as we had pre-booked tickets that included bus transfers to Disneyland Paris. The bus picked up up at 8.30am outside Opera building. We arrived early so we made our way to the local Starbucks near the Opera and WOW! never have we ever seen a Starbucks like this. We absolutely accidentally stumbled across it but since being there I have seen this Starbucks become quite Tik Tok famous. It’s beautiful interior definitely made for a special breakfast location.
Disneyland; We loved having the pre-booked transfers to Disneyland it made everything so easy to just arrived at the bus and know we didn’t have to worry. The only downside to this is that you don’t get tickets until the day of your trip which made pre-booking restaurants and express lane tickets impossible as this is done through the Disney App. Disneyland was the whole reason for the Paris leg of the trip so it was a very exciting day for the girls. I hadn’t been the most organised when it came to Disneyland and pre-planning this part of the trip though, personally I am not the biggest fan off theme parks so it wasn’t something I was honestly excited for. Well Disneyland proved me wrong that’s all I can say. I did miss out on booking the themed character restaurants ( these need to be booked months in advance aparently) but to be honest I am glad we didn’t book the restaurants as there is so many fun food places and I am glad we didn’t waste hours sitting down for lunch. We only had one day and we wanted to make the most of it.
I had pre-planned before our trip all the rides we wanted to go on and all the rides Peaches our youngest to go on with the height restrictions. One of the best things about Disneyland is that most of the rides are super family friendly and great for all ages and heights.
We decided that for all the rides we would pay for the express passes. The lines for the rides often where around 1-2 hours long and we knew Peaches didn’t have the patience to wait that long and we think that this investment is what made the day really enjoyable. It was about $8-14 per person per ride but we only had 4-5 rides we wanted to go on and it really was worth the money. We only waited around 5-15 mins per ride. We loved all the rides we went on including Autopia, Phantom manor, Peter Pan, Pirates, Buzz light year and Big Thunder Mountain. All of them where fantastic. My kids didn’t find any of them scary but if your little ones are a bit prone to being scared you may want to avoid Phantom Manor and Pirates.
We did both the morning and afternoon parades which where really beautiful and fun.
One of my favourite parts of the day was the Loin King show. Wow! it was fantastic - the set signs, costumes, dancers. I had tears in my eyes. It was beautiful. Other than that I recommend you get yourselves a set of signature “Mickey” ears and enjoy all the amazing food Disneyland has to offer. We enjoyed Mickey pizza, popcorn, Minnie shortbread cookies, Donuts, Ice-cream, Mickey ham and cheese rolls. All the photos was incredible and so fun!
Finally, I highly recommend checking out the castle and underneath the castle you can visit the dragon which the kids really loved. The bus picked us up at 8.30pm so we did miss the night show but we had honestly been all Disneyed out by that point and were ready for bed.
Overall it was such a wonderful day and something I am sure the kids will never forget.
Day 3
I really loved this third and last day in Paris. Jesse and I have both been to Paris before so I was just looking forward to taking the girls to some of our favourite spots.
We started the morning with breakfast at Angelina to try their famous hot chocolate. We arrived early to avoid the line and I definitely recommend this. We actually walked there from our hotel and it was about 25mins but it was beautiful seeing all the parks.
Once seated we enjoyed the breakfast basket of croissants and their famous creamy hot chocolate. Highly recommend it was a beautiful experience.
We then headed across the road to the beautiful Tuileries Garden where we took some photos and just enjoyed all the beautiful Spring Blooms! It was stunning park. Next up we walked by the Louve. We originally had brought tickets to it but ended up not going as we really wanted soak up more of just Paris in general and thought the kids probably wouldn’t had enjoyed this as much.
To get around this day we purchase BIG BUS tickets these are a fantastic way of seeing the city. You get little ear phones and it tells you all about the areas you are driving through and stops at all the main tourist spots. The kids loved this. We stopped by the Notre Dame and the headed to the Latin Quarter to check out Shakespear and Co Book store which is one of my favourite places in Paris.
We had to rush from here to make our lunch booking at Pink Mama. We really struggled to get taxis in Paris. So keep this in mind when travelling. We found them really expensive and sometimes they would flat out just reject us once they saw the kids (very odd but happened multiple times). Pink Mama has been made pretty famous on social media and bookings are definitely needed. I honestly didn’t think it was that amazing (unpopular opinion maybe) I think I would have preferred something a little less “touristy.”
After lunch we spent some time in Mont Marte and this was one of my favourite spots I could have spent all day here. We wandered to the black and white Photo Booth and had some fun there. Checked out some of the locations of “ Emily in Paris” which Summer and I loved watching together. Mont Marte, is know for its local artists and the streets are filled with them offering portraits and sketches. We decided to get the girls sketches done and is one of my favourite mementos from our trip and now sits pretty in our room. We stopped by Carette to try another famous French hot chocolate with cream and it was also lovely I think I liked it even more than Angelinas.
The kids had some Nutella crepes and went on the Carousel. We walked past the local Flee markets filled with antique french jewellery and photos.
Once again we struggled to get a taxi so we actually walked all the way to the Eiffel Tower. It took us an 1.5 hours and I wouldn’t recommend this haha! Along our walk there we stopped at cheese stores, bakeries and fruit shops to collect items for our Eiffel Tower dinner picnic which we enjoyed as the sunset.
We decided to not go up the Eiffel Tower this trip. Jesse and I had both done it before and although it is a beautiful view. It truly is more magical to look at it from afar. The night finished with a short stroll along the Seine and we headed back to our hotel for a good nights sleep before our early morning trip to the airport to make our way to ROMA!
